1. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to a button apparatus, and more particularly, to a button apparatus with a speaker.
2. Description of Related Art
Thanks to the great progress of technology and highly developed manufacturing techniques, various electronic products have been developed based on the direction of making it lighter, thinner, shorter and smaller, so that customer requirements can be fulfilled. Electronic products such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), palm game units, electronic dictionaries, mobile phones and notebook computers are all dedicated to miniaturization. All these electronic products are equipped with audio/video (AV) effects and integrate various functions into a single product. How to integrate these functional modules into a limited space is a major endeavor direction.
For a PDA or palm game unit, it requires a large space for accommodating a speaker and an operating button. FIG. 1 schematically shows a PDA having a conventional operating button 12 and speaker 22. The conventional operating button 12 is attached to a front cover 10 of the PDA in a cantilevered manner, having one end thereof fixed to a post 14 of the front cover 10. The operating button 12 further has an actuating stud 16 extending rearwardly for activating a switch 18 on a circuit board 20. The speaker 22 is located on a bottom of the circuit board 20, and the broadcast direction of the speaker 22 is facing a rear cover 24 of the PDA, so that sound waves generated by the speaker 22 are sent out by passing the rear cover 24 as shown by arrows 26 of FIG. 1.
The major defect of this prior art is that the speaker 22 can not be located at the same side with the operating button 12 in respect to the circuit board 20, to avoid taking up too much space. That is, the switch 18 and the speaker 22 are located on opposite sides of the circuit board 20, respectively. Therefore, the space occupied is relatively large, which is disadvantageous in view of the miniaturization trend. Moreover, since the broadcast direction of the speaker 22 is facing the rear cover 24 and the user is in the direction of the front cover 10, the sound quality received by the user is poor. In the case where a protection cover (not shown) is used to enclose the PDA, the sound quality is more deteriorated since the sound waves are absorbed by the protection cover.
FIG. 2 schematically shows an operating button 52 with a speaker 60 of a PDA in accordance with a related art. In this related art, the speaker 60 is located below and received in the four-directional operating button 52 to save the space originally occupied by the speaker 22 of FIG. 1. The four-directional operating button 52 is used for depressing a four-switch assembly 56 on a circuit board 58 via a four-side pressing arm 54 of the operating button 52 so as to control a directional movement of a cursor of the PDA. By using this type of button structure, the four-directional operating button 52 itself does not have to be fixed on a front cover 50 of the PDA, and the broadcast direction of the speaker 60 located in the four-directional control button 52 is facing up as shown by arrows 62, which are facing forwardly to the direction of the user.
Although the structure mentioned above can improve the defect of the button/speaker structure of FIG. 1, however, since the speaker 60 is received in the four-directional operating button 52, the size of the four-directional operating button 52 should be large enough to accommodate the speaker 60. Furthermore, since the speaker 60 is secured inside the four-directional operating button 52, when the four-directional operating button 52 is being pressed, the speaker 60 moves with the operating button 52. The movement of the speaker 60 affects the quality of sound generated by the speaker 60. Moreover, in this related art, since the depressing force from the operating button 52 directly acts on the PCB 58, the PCB 58 should be a rigid PCB so it is strong enough to resist the depressing force. A rigid PCB has a large thickness, which results in that the button/speaker structure in accordance with the related art has a relatively large height, and the PDA incorporating the button/speaker structure of the related art accordingly cannot have a low profile.